A telephone call to Dad

I called my Father yesterday.

Last week, when I called my godmother to wish her a happy birthday, she reminded me that I hadn't called my Father in awhile. I like to let the time pass between phone calls to him. Not much happens in his life, and when I call once a week, I hear the same tales, sometimes embellished and flavored differently.

Sometimes I even end up getting the truth. Like the phone call before last when he explained the real reason the kitchen caught on fire: he left the house to pick up my drug-addicted nephew and forgot he turned on the stove.

That happens when you worry about someone you really should just write off.

So, I called him yesterday morning. I prepared myself beforehand for a short conversation about pretty much the same things we usually talk about.

Things were a bit different this time.

He was doing okay, and there really wasn't much to talk about. He orderd the headstone for my Mother's grave--3 thousand dollars--and they would install it in the next week or so. My Aunt Julie was driving my Godmother crazy. My Godmother stopped by with a fra diavlo seafood dish (she told me that last week), and he had already made pork chops and fried potatoes, so they switched dinners. He was surprised she could cook so good. She wore a little makeup and looked nice...

I could tell the conversation was going to take a very weird turn any minute...

And he noticed that the neighbor, Sherry, was spending a bit more time out than she usually does. She's been screwing alot of guys lately.

"She's entitled to go out with whomever she wants to, Dad, she's a grown woman. It doesn't mean she's having sex with all of them either."

I know when he makes commments like this, there's more crudery ahead.

"You know, Tish, she's a damned cold woman that one," he said, "I do things for her and she doesn't come across..."

"Dad, she doesn't have to do anything for you, you know..."

"I know...heck, I'm 80 years old! But the other day, she bent over and showed me her titties...right down to where I could see the tops of her nipples..."

He tends to forget that she's an old friend of mine, and had it been a few years ago, I would have had a serious flip-out over that sentence. Over the past couple of months I've been learning to handle those remarks much better--like an expert in left-field. The last time he got a bit out of hand with the crudery, I opened my mouth about Lucky Bastard. I told him I had this pretty little blond businessman who liked to stop by in the mornings, who could go for hours...and that Steady Eddie knew all about it, and, "frankly Dad, I've always kept a spare...got to...you know how it is."

"But he's just using you for sex!" Dad complained.

"As if I want him for anything more? Ain't no other reason to keep him around" I laughed.

When I told my friend Cathy about that one, she just cracked up. "Well, you're just giving him a dose of his own medicine," she remarked.

He dislikes it more than a teaspoon of castor oil. It is, I'm sure, just as bitter.

So, after the nipple remark, I started in. "Well, Dad, want me to start talking some details about that pretty little blond I keep over here?" I like referring to Lucky Bastard in the terms my Father used to use for women he ogled. I don't think he ever knew what those words could possibly have sounded like to a young girl wrestling with notions of sexuality and what it means to be a woman.

Or what they could do to her notions of men...

He becomes embarassed "Nope, nope, I don't need to know those details," he gets loud and laughes nervously.

"And I don't need to know any details about the neighbor either..." I said, "you should know better. And you should know she don't mean anything by it. So, what else is going on down there?"

He tells me about my niece and her boyfriend taking a trip to Barbados with the other people in the young man's group home. I think that's a good thing. Just because they have the emotional and learning problems they have doesn't mean they can't go places and enjoy life a bit. "She needs to get away from her mother anyway," I mention.

"That's for sure. Your sister's one cold woman..."

"That's an understatment, Dad..."

Understating the bleeding obvious.

He tells me more about my nephew harassing him, and I tell him if it gets too much to call the cops. Don't give him any more money and let him just die if that's what he wants. I'm glad that my father's given up on him--unless it's nothing more than lip-service so that I'll approve of him.

After all, I'd already spanked him over that nipple remark.

I told my Dad about the articles I'm working on, about contacting Harvard, maybe MIT. About the fact that people actually care about what I have to say about the strange virtual world I inhabit.

He doesn't really understand, and that's okay. Harvard, to him, would be just another bill. To me, it means another life.

But it's okay that he doesn't get it...any more than he'll understand the wallop upside the head with a Lucky Bastard comment everytime he opens his mouth about lusting after any of the women around him...

I have to end the phone call. Time to get dressed and ready to go out for the afternoon. We say goodbye, and I get the feeling he doesn't want me to hang up. "Hope you'll come down soon," he says.

"Yeah, Dad...maybe in a couple of weeks. We'll see what we're doing...you know how it is..."

Bye.